8 ms·

There are a ton of theories out there that the gluten sensitivity is something other than for gluten, but just a big correlation. I'm pretty convinced by the l

There are a ton of theories out there that the gluten sensitivity is something other than for gluten, but just a big correlation. I'm pretty convinced by the literature that gluten sensitivity isn't really a "thing" outside of celiac disease, but even with me, I have problems with painful acne breakouts when I eat gluten, that don't happen when I don't have gluten. And from doing some googling and informal surveying of friends, it seems I'm far from alone on that. Now is that because of gluten itself? Who knows. Maybe it has to do with how wheat is processed these days, or something else. It's really frustrating that something so basic and common doesn't seem to have any scientific answers, though.

Danihan 9y ago
My pet theory is that people are sensitive to the glyphosate sprayed on most wheat, not the actual gluten.
- kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
  BS. Glyphosate doesn't last long enough to persist in plants and nobody is spraying wheat right before harvest.
  - DowsingSpoon 9y ago
    >nobody is spraying wheat right before harvest Glyphosate is sometimes used as a desiccant to alter the timing of wheat harvests, ensure even ripening, and to make harvesting easier. While it's not a widespread practice, it does happen in the US.
  - forgotmypw 9y ago
    The typical Glyphosate mix includes many other chemicals that do persist.
  - msandford 9y ago
    > Glyphosate doesn't last long enough to persist in plants and nobody is spraying wheat right before harvest. Citation needed! Snopes says that the underlying practice is real despite a lack of evidence that the glyphosate causes the ailments: https://www.snopes.com/food/tainted/roundupwheat.asp https://www.snopes.com/food/tainted/roundupwheat.asp This paper attempts to draw some kind of causual biochemical link between glyphosate and celiac through metabolic processes: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24678255 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24678255
  - abainbridge 9y ago
    The EU have acceptable "Maximum Residue Levels" of Glyphosate in foods: http://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/pesticides/eu-pesticides-database/public/?event=pesticide.residue.CurrentMRL&language=EN&pestResidueId=120 http://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/pesticides/eu-pesticides-data... In wheat it is 10 mg/kg. (Page 5 from the above link). This UK report: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/627957/pesticide-residues-quarter4-2016-report.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm... found pesiticide residues in 90 of 96 cereal crop samples tested. However, it concluded that "None of the residues detected by the laboratory would be expected to have an effect on health." A BBC TV programme covered this issue in 2014: http://www.countryfile.com/news/pesticides-found-over-60-uks-bread http://www.countryfile.com/news/pesticides-found-over-60-uks...
  - sporkenfang 9y ago
    Actually, it's a relatively popular harvesting practice for non-organic crops -- kill them all at the same time so they're all ready to harvest. Differs by region, but afaik in the US foods labelled as organic can't be harvested in this way.
- VLM 9y ago
  Glyphosate is banned from organic wheat farming and organic wheat flour is cheaply and widely available for experimenting. "Bobs Red Mill" and numerous other brands, etc. Glyphosate is popular when growing non-wheat non-organic produce; if a glyphosate allergy existed, it would likely not appear like a gluten allergy because most products that once contacted it are not gluten-containing. You can buy glyphosate products at home depot for experimentation. It would appear to be a cheap and simple hypothesis to test.
  - legulere 9y ago
    > Glyphosate is popular when growing non-wheat non-organic produce I only know of glyphosate resistant soy which ends up in cow food. You usually don’t spray glyphosate on stuff you want to eat because it kills it, which only in the case of wheat is what you want.
    - CodeWriter23 9y ago
      Actually, farmers desiccate wheat before harvest because dying plants yield more seed. Glyphosate is among various pesticides used for desiccation.
      - saalweachter 9y ago
        Just want to chime in for other confused people (I grew up on a Midwestern farm and had never heard of the practice of desiccating wheat, so I've been reading a lot about it on the internet today) -- this appears to be a northern latitude practice - every reference I can find to it is from Canada, the UK and North Dakota, so I'm guessing this has to do with growing wheat in a shorter growing season. So it's not nearly a universal practice, but on the other hand, North Dakota does account for 20% of the US wheat production. (And on the gripping hand, I don't know what wheat distribution in the US looks like; will ND wheat tend to be consumed in a particular region, or will secondary distribution through eg packaged foods tend to distribute it nation-wide?)
- saalweachter 9y ago
  People spray glyphosate on wheat? Glyphosate is typically used in conjunction with "Roundup Ready" crops, or before/during planting in "no-till" crops. While Monsanto developed a Roundup Ready line of wheat, it never actually made it to market, AFAIK, so why would you be spraying glyphosate on wheat? (Serious question; while I have some background in agriculture, I'm not familiar with all of even the common practices.) ETA: Reading the Snopes link, looks like it's mainly practiced in North Dakota, which explains why I've never heard of it.
  - seanot 9y ago
    It's not practiced in ND out anywhere else. The export market won't accept it and it's not deliverable against spring wheat futures so it's not marketable and never has been.
  - baq 9y ago
    It makes the wheat ready for harvest all at the same time.
- pdabbadabba 9y ago
  But then why only gluten/wheat products, and not other crops treated with glyphosate?
  - abainbridge 9y ago
    The EU limit for the residual amount of glyphosate allowed in wheat is higher than many other crops, so maybe that's why. But barley and soya beans, for example, are even higher.
- kaitai 9y ago
  A piece of evidence to add to the puzzle: new study just came out in JAMA looking at urine levels of glyphosate in older adults in California. It's increased a lot over the last few decades. Humans are definitely getting a lot of it. https://media.jamanetwork.com/news-item/study-finds-increase-herbicide-older-adults/ https://media.jamanetwork.com/news-item/study-finds-increase...
- lj3 9y ago
  I'll see your pet theory and raise you mine: most people are sensitive to the additives added to fortified wheat sold in the States, especially Vitamin B[0] and Iron[1]. [0]: https://freetheanimal.com/2016/05/enrichment-promotes-everything.html https://freetheanimal.com/2016/05/enrichment-promotes-everyt... [1]: https://freetheanimal.com/2015/06/enrichment-theory-everything.html https://freetheanimal.com/2015/06/enrichment-theory-everythi...
  - lsniddy 9y ago
    also related https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/0*pBs90R1LfdGOfpTS.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/0*pBs90R1LfdGOfpTS....
  - Danihan 9y ago
    This makes even more sense. I was constantly trying to figure out why people with gluten sensitivities don't have reactions in most European countries. The enrichment theory seems pretty persuasive.
scythe 9y ago
Wheat contains FODMAPs. I can't remember what kind exactly, but they're there. So it's actually kind of hard to eat gluten without FODMAPs, unless it's seitan or something. Hence the abstract of the article states: "Foods with gluten often contain fructans, a type of fermentable oligo-, di-, monosaccharides and polyols" https://www.verywell.com/wheat-and-the-low-fodmap-diet-1944751 https://www.verywell.com/wheat-and-the-low-fodmap-diet-19447...
mirimir 9y ago
I'm also pretty convinced that "gluten sensitivity" generally has little to do with gluten. I react to many wheat products (including certified organic ones) with gastrointestinal upset, acne, etc. But I can eat some regularly, with no problems. It's clearly not crackers vs bread. But what? So maybe fructan. I wonder what affects fructan levels in wheat products.
- hellrich 9y ago
  Why should organic products not contain gluten?
  - mirimir 9y ago
    I'm not arguing that they don't. But one hopes that they don't contain, for example, glyphosate.
    - orwin 9y ago
      I wish people stop with this glyphosate in food. The traces we cand find aare in small quantities and even if you eat the same quantity of lead, you should still be fine. The issue with glyphosate is the volatility, the fact that it stay in the ground, it can be absorbed through the skin (hence bad for farmers and people living near farms) but at least in europe, the quantities you can ingest are too small to endanger you. The fact that the main arguments of anti-glyphosate is this flawed argument, lobbies can easely convince the legislators that this argument have non-scientific ground (obviously) and should be ignored.
      - mirimir 9y ago
        Sorry. It was a bad example of pesticides. I used it because it's been discussed.
      - kaitai 9y ago
        See Oct JAMA article; while food may contain only trace amounts we're ingesting and excreting more than ever.
lactinfo 9y ago
The human brain has immense ability to correlate things, justifiably or no. Ultimately anecdotes like yours are frustrating because so many possible things could be happening but people treat your hypothesis seriously anyway.
- sametmax 9y ago
  Well it's fair to do so. Correlation is not causation, but that's a starting point at least. And to find an answer, you need to start somewhere.
  - lactinfo 9y ago
    Sure. I suggest skepticism as a starting point. Maybe come up with a dozen alternative theories to compare to your pet theory. It’s quite easy to accept something without alternatives.
Lazare 9y ago
My significant other is in a similar situation. A reasonable amount of wheat-based baked goods (a burger bun, a slice of bread, a slice of pizza) will almost invariably set her off (causing both skin and intestinal distress). And if it sets her off once, it'll always set her off. Small amounts of seemingly similar wheat-containing foods (eg, a bite of someone else's sandwich) will generally not. Non-gluten containing foods seem to be fine...but even when she's great about avoiding gluten, she'll have occasional outbreaks, strongly suggesting it's not (just? only?) gluten. Her doctor has labelled it as gluten sensitivity, but we're well aware that it's not really clear she has any such thing, or if such as thing even exists. The FODMAP/fructan stuff sounds promising, but one common source of FODMAPs is garlic, and she adores garlic and eats it with everything in vast amounts which 1) strongly suggests that at least some FODMAPs are fine for her and 2) makes her extremely reluctant to try a FODMAP free diet. The whole this is baffling. She clearly doesn't have coeliac disease, small amounts of gluten are (normally) fine, large amounts of things containing gluten are not fine, very similar things without gluten are fine, but something other than gluten that is consumed even when gluten is being avoided is not fine, at least some high-fructan/FODMAP foods are fine...I feel like I'm missing a piece of the puzzle. My current pet theory is that it's a reaction to at least two different substances, but what? For now she just avoids gluten and (mostly) avoids outbreaks. It's confusing but it's an easy coping strategy.
- mirimir 9y ago
  Yes, same for me. I know which commercial wheat products I can eat, and which I can't. There's no obvious correlation. Stuff that's labeled "gluten-free" is generally OK. But some whole-wheat stuff that's clearly not gluten-free is also OK. So basically, I eat what I know is safe for me. If there's something that appeals a lot, I may test a little.
- mirko22 9y ago
  I have similar problems, but when i make my own bread it does not happen... I think it has to do more with additives and other stuff they put in wheat-based baked goods these days that actually trigger reactions. Bread used to go dry after a day, now it lasts for a week... That is not normal.

Danihan 9y ago

My pet theory is that people are sensitive to the glyphosate sprayed on most wheat, not the actual gluten.

kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
BS. Glyphosate doesn't last long enough to persist in plants and nobody is spraying wheat right before harvest.
- DowsingSpoon 9y ago
  >nobody is spraying wheat right before harvest Glyphosate is sometimes used as a desiccant to alter the timing of wheat harvests, ensure even ripening, and to make harvesting easier. While it's not a widespread practice, it does happen in the US.
- forgotmypw 9y ago
  The typical Glyphosate mix includes many other chemicals that do persist.
- msandford 9y ago
  > Glyphosate doesn't last long enough to persist in plants and nobody is spraying wheat right before harvest. Citation needed! Snopes says that the underlying practice is real despite a lack of evidence that the glyphosate causes the ailments: https://www.snopes.com/food/tainted/roundupwheat.asp https://www.snopes.com/food/tainted/roundupwheat.asp This paper attempts to draw some kind of causual biochemical link between glyphosate and celiac through metabolic processes: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24678255 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24678255
- abainbridge 9y ago
  The EU have acceptable "Maximum Residue Levels" of Glyphosate in foods: http://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/pesticides/eu-pesticides-database/public/?event=pesticide.residue.CurrentMRL&language=EN&pestResidueId=120 http://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/pesticides/eu-pesticides-data... In wheat it is 10 mg/kg. (Page 5 from the above link). This UK report: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/627957/pesticide-residues-quarter4-2016-report.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm... found pesiticide residues in 90 of 96 cereal crop samples tested. However, it concluded that "None of the residues detected by the laboratory would be expected to have an effect on health." A BBC TV programme covered this issue in 2014: http://www.countryfile.com/news/pesticides-found-over-60-uks-bread http://www.countryfile.com/news/pesticides-found-over-60-uks...
- sporkenfang 9y ago
  Actually, it's a relatively popular harvesting practice for non-organic crops -- kill them all at the same time so they're all ready to harvest. Differs by region, but afaik in the US foods labelled as organic can't be harvested in this way.
VLM 9y ago
Glyphosate is banned from organic wheat farming and organic wheat flour is cheaply and widely available for experimenting. "Bobs Red Mill" and numerous other brands, etc. Glyphosate is popular when growing non-wheat non-organic produce; if a glyphosate allergy existed, it would likely not appear like a gluten allergy because most products that once contacted it are not gluten-containing. You can buy glyphosate products at home depot for experimentation. It would appear to be a cheap and simple hypothesis to test.
- legulere 9y ago
  > Glyphosate is popular when growing non-wheat non-organic produce I only know of glyphosate resistant soy which ends up in cow food. You usually don’t spray glyphosate on stuff you want to eat because it kills it, which only in the case of wheat is what you want.
  - CodeWriter23 9y ago
    Actually, farmers desiccate wheat before harvest because dying plants yield more seed. Glyphosate is among various pesticides used for desiccation.
    - saalweachter 9y ago
      Just want to chime in for other confused people (I grew up on a Midwestern farm and had never heard of the practice of desiccating wheat, so I've been reading a lot about it on the internet today) -- this appears to be a northern latitude practice - every reference I can find to it is from Canada, the UK and North Dakota, so I'm guessing this has to do with growing wheat in a shorter growing season. So it's not nearly a universal practice, but on the other hand, North Dakota does account for 20% of the US wheat production. (And on the gripping hand, I don't know what wheat distribution in the US looks like; will ND wheat tend to be consumed in a particular region, or will secondary distribution through eg packaged foods tend to distribute it nation-wide?)
saalweachter 9y ago
People spray glyphosate on wheat? Glyphosate is typically used in conjunction with "Roundup Ready" crops, or before/during planting in "no-till" crops. While Monsanto developed a Roundup Ready line of wheat, it never actually made it to market, AFAIK, so why would you be spraying glyphosate on wheat? (Serious question; while I have some background in agriculture, I'm not familiar with all of even the common practices.) ETA: Reading the Snopes link, looks like it's mainly practiced in North Dakota, which explains why I've never heard of it.
- seanot 9y ago
  It's not practiced in ND out anywhere else. The export market won't accept it and it's not deliverable against spring wheat futures so it's not marketable and never has been.
- baq 9y ago
  It makes the wheat ready for harvest all at the same time.
pdabbadabba 9y ago
But then why only gluten/wheat products, and not other crops treated with glyphosate?
- abainbridge 9y ago
  The EU limit for the residual amount of glyphosate allowed in wheat is higher than many other crops, so maybe that's why. But barley and soya beans, for example, are even higher.
kaitai 9y ago
A piece of evidence to add to the puzzle: new study just came out in JAMA looking at urine levels of glyphosate in older adults in California. It's increased a lot over the last few decades. Humans are definitely getting a lot of it. https://media.jamanetwork.com/news-item/study-finds-increase-herbicide-older-adults/ https://media.jamanetwork.com/news-item/study-finds-increase...
lj3 9y ago
I'll see your pet theory and raise you mine: most people are sensitive to the additives added to fortified wheat sold in the States, especially Vitamin B[0] and Iron[1]. [0]: https://freetheanimal.com/2016/05/enrichment-promotes-everything.html https://freetheanimal.com/2016/05/enrichment-promotes-everyt... [1]: https://freetheanimal.com/2015/06/enrichment-theory-everything.html https://freetheanimal.com/2015/06/enrichment-theory-everythi...
- lsniddy 9y ago
  also related https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/0*pBs90R1LfdGOfpTS.png https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/0*pBs90R1LfdGOfpTS....
- Danihan 9y ago
  This makes even more sense. I was constantly trying to figure out why people with gluten sensitivities don't have reactions in most European countries. The enrichment theory seems pretty persuasive.

scythe 9y ago

Wheat contains FODMAPs. I can't remember what kind exactly, but they're there. So it's actually kind of hard to eat gluten without FODMAPs, unless it's seitan or something. Hence the abstract of the article states: "Foods with gluten often contain fructans, a type of fermentable oligo-, di-, monosaccharides and polyols" https://www.verywell.com/wheat-and-the-low-fodmap-diet-1944751 https://www.verywell.com/wheat-and-the-low-fodmap-diet-19447...

mirimir 9y ago

I'm also pretty convinced that "gluten sensitivity" generally has little to do with gluten. I react to many wheat products (including certified organic ones) with gastrointestinal upset, acne, etc. But I can eat some regularly, with no problems. It's clearly not crackers vs bread. But what? So maybe fructan. I wonder what affects fructan levels in wheat products.

hellrich 9y ago
Why should organic products not contain gluten?
- mirimir 9y ago
  I'm not arguing that they don't. But one hopes that they don't contain, for example, glyphosate.
  - orwin 9y ago
    I wish people stop with this glyphosate in food. The traces we cand find aare in small quantities and even if you eat the same quantity of lead, you should still be fine. The issue with glyphosate is the volatility, the fact that it stay in the ground, it can be absorbed through the skin (hence bad for farmers and people living near farms) but at least in europe, the quantities you can ingest are too small to endanger you. The fact that the main arguments of anti-glyphosate is this flawed argument, lobbies can easely convince the legislators that this argument have non-scientific ground (obviously) and should be ignored.
    - mirimir 9y ago
      Sorry. It was a bad example of pesticides. I used it because it's been discussed.
    - kaitai 9y ago
      See Oct JAMA article; while food may contain only trace amounts we're ingesting and excreting more than ever.

lactinfo 9y ago

The human brain has immense ability to correlate things, justifiably or no. Ultimately anecdotes like yours are frustrating because so many possible things could be happening but people treat your hypothesis seriously anyway.

sametmax 9y ago
Well it's fair to do so. Correlation is not causation, but that's a starting point at least. And to find an answer, you need to start somewhere.
- lactinfo 9y ago
  Sure. I suggest skepticism as a starting point. Maybe come up with a dozen alternative theories to compare to your pet theory. It’s quite easy to accept something without alternatives.

Lazare 9y ago

My significant other is in a similar situation. A reasonable amount of wheat-based baked goods (a burger bun, a slice of bread, a slice of pizza) will almost invariably set her off (causing both skin and intestinal distress). And if it sets her off once, it'll always set her off. Small amounts of seemingly similar wheat-containing foods (eg, a bite of someone else's sandwich) will generally not. Non-gluten containing foods seem to be fine...but even when she's great about avoiding gluten, she'll have occasional outbreaks, strongly suggesting it's not (just? only?) gluten. Her doctor has labelled it as gluten sensitivity, but we're well aware that it's not really clear she has any such thing, or if such as thing even exists. The FODMAP/fructan stuff sounds promising, but one common source of FODMAPs is garlic, and she adores garlic and eats it with everything in vast amounts which 1) strongly suggests that at least some FODMAPs are fine for her and 2) makes her extremely reluctant to try a FODMAP free diet. The whole this is baffling. She clearly doesn't have coeliac disease, small amounts of gluten are (normally) fine, large amounts of things containing gluten are not fine, very similar things without gluten are fine, but something other than gluten that is consumed even when gluten is being avoided is not fine, at least some high-fructan/FODMAP foods are fine...I feel like I'm missing a piece of the puzzle. My current pet theory is that it's a reaction to at least two different substances, but what? For now she just avoids gluten and (mostly) avoids outbreaks. It's confusing but it's an easy coping strategy.

mirimir 9y ago
Yes, same for me. I know which commercial wheat products I can eat, and which I can't. There's no obvious correlation. Stuff that's labeled "gluten-free" is generally OK. But some whole-wheat stuff that's clearly not gluten-free is also OK. So basically, I eat what I know is safe for me. If there's something that appeals a lot, I may test a little.
mirko22 9y ago
I have similar problems, but when i make my own bread it does not happen... I think it has to do more with additives and other stuff they put in wheat-based baked goods these days that actually trigger reactions. Bread used to go dry after a day, now it lasts for a week... That is not normal.